We've Been Living our Happily Ever After for

Saturday, November 20, 2010

I have a high school batchmate who'll get married April next year and from time to time I love checking her album if she has new updates on the details of their wedding. Today, I was pleased to see a picture of her groom's barong called a barong suit. I've seen it on Mike and asking Arnold whether he'd like one too(He already agreed to wearing a suit). I like it because it's the perfect fusion of western and eastern- it's not as common as a typical barong but not as hot as a suit as well. here it is:

The material is thicker than the traditional barong which makes it fit better.. cant wait.kakaexcite!

Of course, this is the perfect opportunity to show you(my imaginary friend) what I envision my gown to be:

yes, that is evanka trump...I've been trying so hard to find a front shot of her in her gown but no luck..It's okay cause it's not the exact thing that I want but it's the closest one I can find..

Hay, thinking of the big day makes me all mushy and dreamy..and it should kasi 2am na and I'm still blogging. haha. Till next time my friend^^

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

I'm not the best singer there is but I do know that there are just some songs that speak to your soul na para bang sadyang ginawa ang kantang yun para sayo.Hence, even before I got engrossed on this whole wedding thing, I've been thinking about the songs we're gonna use.

1.Love moves in mysterious ways- I just love every line of this song and I think I'm quite definite on this one.

For the first dance, I'm thinking:

the way you look tonight maroon 5 version- Such a classic song for a wedding. festive yet romantic...just what I want.

For the onsite avp

rhythm of love by plain white t's:
I love love this song and I've been trying to catch it on the radio for 2 weeks and luckily, I did last week so I was able to search for it using the lyrics. There are other songs I want for the avp but they've been used over and over and since this is a relatively new song and plain white t's are not as popular as other bands/singers who made the other songs I like, eto ang number 1 contender ^^

we might do the money dance and an engagement avp depende sa circumstances + the entrance song so more songs to follow(baka si hubby na pumili^^)

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

I've been to numerous weddings and other celebrations for this matter where the couple gave a souvenir item for display, something wrapped in shiny or shimmering or vavaboom wrapper and most(some may have been thrown or destroyed in time) of them are sitting in a cabinet- unused, dusty and for me, quite frankly, a waste of space and money. Don't get me wrong, I'm not being judgmental. I celebrated my 18th birthday with a party and gave one of those too- a lady standing in a platform or something to that effect and we still have around 5-6 of them.

But I believe gone are the days when people appreciated those giveaways. For starters, they're not unique and though the actual design might be varied, guests have probably received dozens of similar things. Second, they're not useful. They just sit in a corner, eating up space and not put to good use. Third, they become uglier and uglier through time.It's a natural cycle for objects to depreciate through time but before that happens, they should have at least been put to good use.CD giveaways became popular for some time but as most people have Iphones, Ipods and all sorts of players nowadays, they're not the thing anymore^^

I apologize in advance to my relatives who were looking forward to those souvenirs because we will not give those types of souvenirs. haha. I've been looking here and there and 3 criterion that I came up with are:

1. That it should be useful. Usefulness is subjective but at the very least, the giveaway must have another purpose than just sit in a cabinet.2. That it must be unique. It can be any ordinary object that looks good or tasteful or creative or artistic.3. It should be pocket friendly. For our Principal sponsors, I was thinking 200-300 is reasonable, 100 for the secondary sponsors +kiddos and 50-75 for the other guests. I was also thinking of having a separate giveaway for the money dance.

Some ideas I saw or came up with are:

1. polvoron or small fondant cakes: I saw these at goldilocks.com and they are adorable! I was thinking we can give a cake to every sponsor(smaller for secondary) but I have no idea how they cost so I'd have to check if they are easy on the pocket.

2.Plants-One of my favorite blog/site is sweetsimplejoys.com and I swear that even before I came across hers, I was already thinking of buying plants but i was really really pleased to know that they gave plants too.One con, however, is that some guests might complain that they'd have to carry something afterwards but most people, I think will be impressed- and we can use them as table decors too^^

3. umbrellas- i only thought of this today, since I'm just planning to give umbrellas to friends who will get married in December. I think it might be nice to have a personalized umbrella, though some might not appreciate it.

4. cupcakes- I've seen really really pretty and eaten yummy cupcakes but one concern, that applies to the fondant and polvoron cakes too is that they are consumable, and though I know guests would appreciate them, I'd still like to see people here and there actually use or keep our giveaways.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

People close to me know how fickle minded I am and there might be decisions here and there concerning the wedding that will be affected (positively or negatively) because of that. Anyway, as of now, when it comes to our wedding rings, I officially don't care :)

Meio and I have talked about this and when I brought up the idea of silver wedding rings, he said "pwede na yan" in reference to silver rings that we saw.

I, on the other hand had more things in mind why I favor silver wedding rings than gold ones- whether they are yellow or white gold. Several reasons are:

1)Not only am I fickle minded but I've got to be one of the worst in keeping my things and remembering where they are- in short burara. I've actually lost our commitment ring about 2 years ago and h2b said he lost his too(which I suspect is a lie that he just said because he's upset). I was able to keep the ring for 3 years naman, to be fair to myself. Still, a pair of Suarez or Karat Gold(2 alternate suppliers kung sakaling mag gold kami) cost around 8-15k for a decent pair. Just imagine that if I lost my ring say, every 3-5 years, that would be 4-7k for every 5 years of my life after the wedding T_T

2)I have a car so H2b and I rarely commute but we still do it every so often and I just dont feel like flashing an 8k wedding ring. White gold actually looks a lot like silver so it is a safer option but from what I've heard, snatchers have leveled up too and can actually distinguish between the two. (times have changed you know :P)

3)The pairs from Filigrenasia are between 1,800 and 4,000k for a pair and the last time I checked, the ones I liked the cheapest are a pair costing 1,800 and another at 4,000. Like I said, those from Suarez and Karat are between 8k-15k a pair. so basically, we can save anywhere from 6-11k(depending on the one we choose both ways) and I can think of a whole lot of things we can do with that money. The minimum savings is at 6k, so I thought of stuff we can allot that money for any of the following:

6k- My gown since I'm planning to get in in Pandi where it'll be much cheaper
6k- Our parents' clothes
6k- half the room accommodation since I'm thinking of alloting 10k for that
6k-500 is our target budget per guest-food, souvenirs, etc and we can already invite 12 extra people with 6k(not much but hey, that would cover my current and previous officemates na ha)
6k-onsite photo slideshows usually cost 5k and 6k means we can have that + tip for the photogs already^^

I know some will give comments about this, especially yung mga echoserang palakang kamaganak ko na wag na lang natin pangalanan. In the end it is still our wedding, so let them be: I OFFICIALLY DONT CARE..especially after seeing a really beautiful pair in Filigrenasia today... i couldnt find pictures online but it looked very close to this one especially since this one has zirconia stones too(not diamonds)

P. S. -my dad works in Saudi and I can just picture him, offering to buy the rings but we're gonna pass since Saudi only has yellow gold and most of the designs are outdated. I do care about my dad's feelings so I'm still thinking of a way to say it nicely that we'll pass ^^

Saturday, October 23, 2010

I will probably quote many people in my posts here and this time, I'll quote Mike when he wrote on their blog na una nilang napili ang venue prior to the church. At first I didnt agree, but now I do for several reasons:

1- every church has that feeling of peacefulness(for me) once I'm inside, parang dama ko agad na kausap ko si lord.2- Budget. The food+ venue will be the biggest chunk of the budget breakdown. Even though the budget will greatly depend on how many guests we're really inviting, we have a projected limit hence pinakauna syang dapat piliin.

At dahil likas akong ulyanin at sa dalas kong maggoogle on suppliers. online diary ko nalang dito para hindi ko na makalimutan. Like I said, the venue would come first and here are some church + venue combos I've looked up

2)-Archbishop Palace + Endramada Events VenuePros: Dream ko talaga na sa Lancaster or another hotel in ortigas area mag check-in for my wedding and so that would fit perfectly with this planCons: 250 lang ang maximum capacity ng Endramada and I think we would go a little over that so hindi ko sure kung kasama pa rin to

4)Transfiguration Chapel Caleruega + Sunview Terraces or casa Carlo TagaytayPros: We are mountaineers so seeing Batulao on our special day would make it even more special(at siguradong kakatihin kami magdayhike) haha. Plus, Caleruega is such an icon in weddings and ang shala ng dating na dun kami ikakasalCons: Tagaytay is near but it's still out of town. We came up with this to minimize the guest list but still have a beautiful wedding. However, there are some suppliers that we are keen on getting (like Nice Print Photo, flowers from Dangwa, etc) for their quality and price(lalo na to) and I'm afraid that we might save on the contracted guest list pero magbalance out din sa OOT charges + extra expenses (like transpo, accommodation, etc)

a birthday party set-up in acacia party place

5) Restaurant + malapit na churcha. Acacia Party Place + any church in San Juanb. Shangri-la blah blah restaurant in West Avenue + malapit na churchc.maghahanap pako, abangan ang susunod na kabanataPros: we dont need to pay a separate fee for the venue kasi all inclusive packages na which means fewer people to deal with and less hassleCons: Dunno pero parang ang baduy ng dating. haha. Acacia is really good and cheap for its location coz we can actually get packages at 400/head.. parang ang pangit lang kasi ilagay sa invitation

6) Christ the King Church + HallPros: Super ganda ng church even from the outside and their rates are not badCons; as of now wala pakong maisip kasi good feedback naman sya sa w@wies..

7) Church in Qc + Perlie's Garden restaurantPros: free use of Tiffany chairs! just dunno if the service is good or notCons: sa mga taong hindi familiar sa elliptical, they might miss it kasi bago magturn ng East Ave pero from the pictures that I saw, maganda naman ^^

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Bakit hindi ako Oc-oc sa gown na isusuot ko???????? hehe. Just wondering. I think most women obsess on that pero I'm more concerned with other things. Siguro dahil chubby ako, and I have this voice telling me na the gown will never look perfect no matter what i do..T_T But anyway, no time to mope because i have found an uber duper gorgeous ring from Filigrenasia. Hayst, kung ako lang, I'd very much like a silver ring pero....let's see..

Dunno what the fuss is about diamond, nakakatakot lang isuot at mawala..I much prefer the rings in Filigrenasia..They use zirconia stones kaya much cheaper but the rings look good just the same.. Anyways, saw this gorgeous, gorgeous(nasabi ko nabang gorgeous??) ring na perfect wedding ring for me...Which I'm sure can have a counterpart ring for Meio-ness :D

Meio(H2B) and I attended a wedding last september and the Photo/Video Supplier was niceprint photo. We've been gaga over them since then but I am probably more amazed by their work. When my sister sneaks up on me, she'll say "ay naku, nanonood ka na naman ng kasal." We do like their work and we think their packages are worth it. It's just that:

1)-It's a little beyond our budget

2)-I cannot accept the fact that only nice print can deliver such videos at the same price.

Hence, I've imposed on myself ever since to look for other photographers and finally after years(it felt like that) of searching, I found golden straws :D

1. Black tie project- Their package is a bit different that nice print's but there'll be 3 photographers instead of 2! and the colors really pop in the pictures.

2. Gentleshot Photography- Nice Print's is still better than theirs but they only charge 35k for the package we like, just dunno if they charge OOT fee because they're based in Angat

Another option I came up with is to just hire a videographer for now, ask Wynn Diancin and probably some other friends to take our pictures and then do the albums later. Wooden albums cost about 5-8k depending on the number of shots, guest books(for the pre-nup photos) at about the same price and parent albums for 2-5k each. So all in all, that's about 20k in packages but we can actually get them cheaper at photo printing shops, at say 10k for everything..at a much later time when we have extra money.

so here are some videographers I've seen that match our budget

1. Kris Matanguihan- She(I think) is really, really good and for 25k, we can get a decent package with same day edit :)

Friday, October 8, 2010

If money comes from a well, then we would get married and have 500 guests, par-tey for a week, have our honeymoon in KK and Thailand and give away starbucks coupons as souvenirs. But sad to say friends, money doesnt come from a well and so we cannot do all these. So, how do we start budgeting?

I have a friend who got married this year and my boyfriend's cousin who will get married this year too and I'm not sure how they did it but I'm quite sure that they made allocations for each expense only to realize later that the allocation doesnt match reality-it's too small. Hence, I think that for ours, we'll do it the other way around, list down all the things we need to spend on, canvass and see which supplier best fits our budget.

Since the biggest chunk of the money would go to food, it has to be the most important decision we would make. And to know how much money we'll spend on that, I decided to make a preliminary guest list. Boy, i got scared.

I belong to a type of family where I know my 2nd cousins, go to funerals of my grandma's siblings and get invited to their celebs. i dunno how you define "tight" but my 2nd degree relatives are as tight as can be. hence, i had to consider them for our wedding and I dont want to be madamot or anything but here's how it goes.assuming it's equal, meio's both sides=1001st degree, mom's side=401st degree, dad's side=502nd degree, mom's side=552nd degree.dad's side=i got scared at this point I stopped counting

just the relatives adds to a grand total of 245 people excluding friends, our own families, officemates and those people that our parents might invite. I thought 200 was tight so I assumed 250 would be find but hell no, it's not. and mind you, my mom has more relatives than my 1st degree from my mother's side to think that I only allocated 4 seats to some of my tatang's siblings= who has 5 married children(my titos and titas), I-cannot-count-offsprings(my cousins) and so on.

I asked my brother's opinion on this and he reassured me " hindi naman yan lahat pupunta.pero para hindi nakakahiya, imbitahin mo na. " but still, 55 is a lot considering that we should make good use of every cent. hay, dunno. if the guest list doesn't get slimmer, magdestination wedding nalang kame sa hk with our families. hehe

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Obsessive Compulsive is supposed to be a disorder wherein the person tries so hard to put things in order. For this wedding, Friends and I have fondly called it ok-ok and I refuse to be called that. I'm not OC-OC. Excited, and scared, and scouting....but not Not oc-oc.. So what am I? I shall get back to you on that :D